


Next Round

by LittleRaven



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Original Character Death(s), POV Outsider, POV Third Person, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 18:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19409194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: Valkyrie pulls them in.





	Next Round

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Wavesinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/gifts).



The first time she met her, she didn’t see a thing. She landed on a pile of junk, aching everywhere. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know it was junk; her nose tried to crinkle under the weight of the rest of her head as she lay there. 

She counted the seconds as she waited for her body to let her stand. She lost count, started over again twice before giving up. She’d have to let the haze in her mind clear up. 

A sound—she recognized it as belonging to a ship—pierced through the fog. It lasted a moment before her neck stung with a new pain, and the fog swallowed her whole. 

The second time, she had a chance to look. Not much else to do, strapped to a chair. 

She was taller than her. Taller and with longer hair, too. Also, a little smug after being paid; she watched her leave, ponytail swinging through the air, and wondered how anyone could look like that after selling a person. 

After selling her. She didn’t have reason to think she in particular should mean anything to the woman, but this was still the sort of thing she couldn’t help taking personally. 

She couldn’t forget her face. She’d looked, all throughout the brief meeting which had decided her fate—a gladiator, it seemed, and damned if she hadn’t run away to this side of the universe to get away from blood and fighting in the first place—and in looking, found nothing. Nothing that could help her, or even let her understand, at least. Her dark eyes might as well have been shut for all they let her get a peek beyond them, and her face might as well have been a wall, all smooth stone with no footholds to climb.

The third time, the woman looked back. She hadn’t been prepared. She’d been sitting still, waiting for her fate, too tired to move and draw attention. 

It hadn’t stopped her from shifting her gaze once she caught another glimpse of her captor, striding by with a large drink in her hand. 

She couldn’t help that. The reason she was here, rather than doing—god knows what else, but doing it freely, and this woman walked around with a large drink as if she was the one having a bad day. The bottle in that hand had a gravity of its own, pulling at her eyes, and she followed it up to that stony face, which finally betrayed a wish, even if only a wish for that drink to pass through her lips. It was no more relaxed, however. 

In following that motion, her eyes had been caught. 

For a moment, she thought it didn’t matter. The woman seemed as indifferent to her as she’d been before. But there it was—anger. The twist of a lip. She didn’t like being watched so. The knowledge emboldened her; she looked directly back. She wanted to be seen. She wanted to be recognized. She was someone she had hurt, and she would make it known. 

Then the woman turned with a shrug; she could see her raising the drink to her mouth again. 

So. Maybe it hadn’t mattered much. Still, she’d had her message, and she’d gotten it through.

The last time, it was a bit hard to tell, what with the blood on her face. She couldn’t even tell who—or what, she’d forgotten—she’d been forced to fight. The only thing she saw in the clarity of her mind’s eye as she died were those dark eyes.


End file.
